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Today is Independent Australia’s second birthday. I remember how two years ago the first article was published — the day Julia Gillard rolled Kevin Rudd. At the same time Rudd was being deposed, IA emerged as an independent Australian voice. Congratulations from history editor Glenn Davies and the team at Independent Australia to managing editor David Donovan, who has nurtured his baby to this milestone.
By Dr Glenn Davies
INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA believes in a fully and truly independent Australia, a nation that determines its own future, a nation that protects its citizens, its environment and its future. A country that is fair and free. Interestingly, 100 years ago the then Labor Prime Minister Andrew Fisher was attempting to ‘Australianise’ our governmental system and national symbols. Fisher took a keen interest in the complex question of national identity. Home-grown symbols, he knew in his heart, were essential for a nation so young. The fragile cultural fabric needed connections, some stitching, and some leadership. Among other initiatives, such as the introduction of the Australian penny in 1911, Fisher had the Australian Coat of Arms (designed by the College of Arms in England) remodelled to give it a more Australian flavour, by having wattle included as the decoration surrounding the Coat of Arms. 100 years later David Donovan continues to fight the good fight of Fisher’s to create an independent Australia.
Since those first days two years ago, Independent Australia has become the premier republican voice in Australia. Within the space of two years Independent Australia has become the modern day version of The Bulletin in its heyday of the 1880s and 1890s. Australia has a long tradition of independent, republican journalism. This tradition was first established in newspapers such as the People’s Advocate and the Empire of the 1840s and 1850s, supported in the Age in the 1870s and 1880s, and a constant theme in publications in the 1890s such as the Newcastle Radical, the Wagga Hummer, the Cairns Advocate, the Melbourne Tocsin, the Hobart Clipper, and John Norton’s Truth. But it was in the pages of the Bulletin of the 1880s and 1890s that the flowering of republican ideals can be seen to emerge.
It has been a long time since Australia has had such a strong republican voice as Independent Australia. Australia’s republican voice has been lost for a long time. There have certainly been many writers, artists, academics, and politicians who have actively advocated for an Australian republic over the past century, however they have not had a home where they can all shelter under the same roof. Independent Australia has become that space, a republican space, a civic space where republicans and others can debate the issues that are important to our political and civic future. Republican voices now have a home. All families need a home. Thanks to David Donovan and all the contributors to Independent Australia the republican tribe can begin to look around and see who they are.
So, Happy Birthday Independent Australia, and here’s to a long, independent life – and remember, every tribe needs a home.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
4 Comments
‘A country that is fair and free.’
That is a vision we desperately need. I believe we once had it – back around 1900. My views are not based on academic research but rather reflections on snippets I have read and heard. But I see our forbears struggling to make this nation a society that was markedly different to the land of priviledge and class that they left behind. And we have our stories and symbols that come out of that struggle. But I can’t help feeling that we are now fast creating the type of society that our forbears left behind.
I believe we need to go back to those stories and symbols and reflect on them, retell them, and redefine them in a way that is relevant to our kids today.
I don’t claim our history is perfect – like all tribes, we have our dark side and we need to ackhowledge that also and learn from it.
The monarchy remains a symbol of that old world. We need the republic but a republic that is not committed to ‘fair and free’ is simply a rearrangement of the deckchairs on the Titanic.
It must be a long time since we had a Prime Minister like Andrew Fisher.
Thank goodness for IA for conducting real investigative journalism. May we celelbrate a third birthday and more.
Dear DOCTOR GLENN, I’m not the only one who has learned so much from your writings – and many times you have lifted the veil on those aspects of our history about which we know so little.
Glenn – nice article – the history your words run through, embodies or contains, a huge amount of emotion and national pride, and national ambition – very worthy and admirable ambition. [Or maybe, that history just generates a lot of patriotic pride in Australia for me).
Ken’s comment remind me of Manning Clark’s views – that we had begun with aspirations for something much better than the world our forebears left behind – but that we had been thwarted.
Personal view, I think those aspirations for a country that is fair and free will NEVER die — too many of us have that vision within us for Australia to ever lose it.
I am (sadly) of the opinion that it may take several more decades before we achieve the sort of independence we hope for – I think Prince William’s personal popularity will ensure that Australia will not give up the monarchy until several decades hence.
And while Australia holds onto the monarchy, with our military swearing allegiance to the monarch of another country, Australia remains, effectively, British territory
Maybe by the time we break away, our politics will have climbed up and away from the sort of dirty gutter level stuff that has been going on recently. We have produced some great people and leaders in the past – I think and hope we will do even better in the future.
However long it takes, an independent free and fair Australia is our future.